A starter for Christmas lunch

islandgirl8

I'd love to hear what you are having as a starter!

I thought of making a spicy butternut squash soup but I made a trial run last night and it's horrible! Now I'm thinking 'something other than soup" i.e. panicking :eek:

I'm catering for 12. help!

candjsmum

I always do deep fired brie with homemade cranberry sauce, yum yum!!

Meadows

We tend to have a large Prawn Cocktail (homemade sauce with cream) which we have mid morning and then eat the main meal about an hour/hour and a half later.
This way it stops people wanting to nibble the wrong things prior to the main meal, allows us time to enjoy the starter and not be too full (it is a big starter) for the main meal and I get a set of dishes washed out of the way

SugarSpun

I was considering a super simple centrepiece type thing:

flatten a sheet of ready made pastry and spread it with apricot jam. Gently place a whole Brie in the middle and wrap it up. Eggwash and bake. Serve with a cake slice and salad leaves around it.

TylersMummy

I have either prawn cocktail done with some avacado too or breaded camembert with cranberry sauce. Okay, the soup you made was a disaster but have you thought of any other variations of soup? It's definitely an easy one when catering for the number you said and is something you can make in advance. I make butternut squash and red pepper soup every year for another little starter and always make it the day before. There's no spices. It's just roasted squash, a diced red pepper, garlic, onion and chicken stock all blended together, it's a hit every year. Just thinking that soup may be easy for you. Anyway.

How about Bruschetta? You could make the toppings in advance and keep in the fridge and then just toast the slices of bread.

BBC Good Food is my saviour wih ideas for stuff like this:
Cold starters: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/search.do?keywords=&filterItem=&filterItem=&filterItem=&filterItem=course3&filterItem=&filterItem=&filterItem=&filterItem=&filterItem=&filterItem=&x=52&y=14

Hot starters: http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/search.do?keywords=&filterItem=&filterItem=&filterItem=&filterItem=course5&filterItem=&filterItem=&filterItem=&filterItem=&filterItem=&filterItem=&x=26&y=9

HTH

macma

I never do starters ,but this year have decided to as like Meadows says everyone gets the nibbles early.
I'm doing prawn cocktail as the the OH and the grandchildren love prawns-YUK! and for myself and eldest daughter a veggie I thought a small serving of mushroom soup.

weeclick

usually at mums its either prawn cocktail or egg mayo (my fav!) both simple, both can be made in batches and both quite light and dont need to fill big bowls

bossymoo

We're not having starters. We wil probably eat early as the kiddies are small and they get hungry early. We have fruit toast and crumpets etc for breakfast and I'll do a small snack of cheese and biscuits mid-morning for anyone who needs it. Expect we will be too busy playing!

Pate on toast is nice, or melba toast. Or some melon and nice ham? Sometimes we've been known to have yorkshire puddings and a good onion gravy to start!

But generally, if we have starters, the puddings don't get eaten. So we decided this year to skip the first course and go straight for the gammon and turkey! But there is 7 (two toddlers) of us so not as many to please...

Raksha

Smoked salmon and brown bread and butter always goes down well in this house.

notanewuser

Waste of tummy space!!!

We have a late breakfast of scrambled eggs, smoked salmon and toast at about 11am, then dinner at around 5pm and pudding at 8pm. No need for snacks or nibbles that way.

Katiehound

Prawn cocktail for me! My friend always serves that but has said there will be some changes..... that sounds ominous so I hope the prawn cocktail is not axed!!